D 465 
C55 ei gn Ser ies.— No. 4. 

Copy 1 



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Price Threepence. 



UHUP 



ITALY 



AND THE 



JUGOSLAV PEOPLES 



BY 



CIVIS ITALICUS 

TRANSLATED BY 
G. F. HILL. 





ITALY 



AND THE 



JUGOSLAV PEOPLES 



"CIVIS ITALICUS' 



TRANSLATED BY 

G. F. HILL. 



PUBLISHED BY 

The Council for the Study of International Relations 
i, CENTRAL BUILDINGS, WESTMINSTER, S.W. 




-D 






NOTE. 

The Council for the Study of International Relations exists 
solely to encourage and assist the study of international 
relations from all points of view ; the books and pamphlets 
which it publishes or recommends are selected with that object 
alone in view, and the Council is not to be regarded as 
necessarily sharing the views set forth in them. 






PREFATORY NOTE. 

" Civis Italicus " is one of the leading authorities 
on Balkan affairs. Were he writing in his own name, 
he would need no introduction to such Englishmen as 
are at all familiar with the literature of the Balkan 
and Adriatic problems. Accordingly, this essay, 
though first published so long ago as July 1915, since 
when much has happened, should still command 
attention as a statement of the views and ideals of an 
unusually well-informed Italian observer. The author 
has modified it only in certain quite unimportant 
details. 

The thanks of the Council are due to him, and 
to the editor of the Nuova Antologia, in which the 
article first appeared, for permission to issue this 
translation. 

G.F.H. 

March, 191 6. 



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in 2011 with funding from 
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http://www.archive.org/details/italyjugoslavpeoOOcivi 



VI v 



ITALY AND THE JUGOSLAV 
PEOPLES. 

By " CIVIS ITALICUS." 

In whatever way the map of Europe may be rearranged 
as the result of the present struggle, we may from now 
onwards regard it as certain that in the near future 
we shall see a great development of the Jugoslav 
peoples, who seem destined eventually to be re-united 
in a single state, which will play an important part in 
European politics. And, since Italy will in the nature 
of things come into intimate connexion with them, it 
will be well to seek to know them better, to consider 
how to come to an understanding with them, and how 
to inspire with more cordiality our mutual relations, 
political, economic and intellectual. It is too true 
that but little is known in Italy of Balkan questions, 
as of those concerning Austria-Hungary, and one of 
the secondary effects of this war on us is to reveal 
the ignorance of such matters which prevails, I do not 
say among the masses, but also in the more cultivated 
circles of Italian public opinion. The reason perhaps 
is that the Italians travel very little, and are sorely 
lacking in intellectual curiosity. This ignorance, as 






6 ITALY AND THE JUGOSLAV PEOPLES. 

we shall see, has led, at least among one section of our 
public, to quite erroneous judgments, to a contempt 
and antipathy for the Jugoslav peoples, which are in 
great measure quite unwarranted ; and this fact has 
been anything but advantageous to the Balkan policy 
of our Government, which ought to have been supported 
and directed by an intelligent and well-informed 
public opinion. There is now no longer any excuse 
for this ignorance ; the literature on the Balkan and 
Austrian questions is huge, and includes many works 
of real value. Among the more important foreign 
works it is enough to cite that of Wickham Steed, The 
Hapsbiirg Monarchy, which will long remain the classic 
authority on that state, Seton- Watson's The Southern 
Slav Question, on the latest events in the Jugoslav 
world, Leopold von Chlumecky' sOesterreichund I talien, 
a book which, inspired by sentiments far from favour- 
able to us, yet for that very reason merits all our 
attention. Nor is it necessary always to have recourse 
to foreign books ; there are several excellent ones in 
Italian, such as the two volumes by Virginio Gayda, 
La crisi di un Impero and L' Italia d'oltre confine ; 
Alessandro Dudan's La Monarchia degli Absburgo, an 
historical work of considerable importance and based 
on original research ; Angelo Pernice's Origini ed 
evoluzione storica delle nazioni balcaniche, and Gellio 
Cassi's II Mare Adriatico, to mention only some of 
those more recently published. 

It may, therefore, be useful to take a comprehensive 
survey of the historical development and the present 
state of the Jugoslav peoples, especially in so far as 
they are in contact with Italy and Italian interests. 



ITALY AND THE JUGOSLAV PEOPLES 7 

The Jugoslavs* or Southern Slavs are divided into two 
chief groups — the Bulgars, a people not purely Slav 
in origin, but Slavized in language and civilization, 
and the Serbo-Croats, with whom may be grouped 
the Slovenes, racially and geographically their neigh- 
bours. With the first our relations, by reason of 
distance, cannot be very close, so that we shall confine 
our attention to the second group, with which our 
people has already been in direct contact for fourteen 
centuries ; and perhaps to-morrow the same will be 
true of our state. As to the Slovenes, indeed, not only 
are they situated at the gates of Italy, but some groups 
of them are actually settled within our borders. The 
total number of the Serbo-Croats and Slovenes 
amounts to about ten millions. Let us now see how 
they are distributed. 

The Slovenes, in all 1,400,000, occupy the whole 
of Carniola, save some small tracts inhabited by 
Germans, part of Carinthia, of Styria, of Eastern 
Friuli (Gorizia-Gradisca), and some territories of the 
interior of Istria, and they constitute about ten per cent, 
of the population of Trieste. They are the poorest 
and most ignorant portion of the Jugoslav race ; 
devoid of literature, art or traditions, they would never 
have had much importance if Austria had not made 
use of them as an instrument to crush the Italian 
element on the littoral and especially in the city of 
Trieste. 

The Serbo-Croats number about nine millions, and 
are spread over a vast zone, divided between Austria, 
Hungary, Serbia and Montenegro. Forming racially 

* From jug, i.e., " South " in Serbo-Croatian. 






8 ITALY AND THE JUGOSLAV PEOPLES. 

and linguistically a single people*, they are divided by 
religion, and up to a certain point by political ideals, 
into two groups ; the Croats occupy the eastern part 
of Istria and the Quarnero islands, where they make 
about 200,000 out of a total population of 414,133. 
The mass of the Croat population on the other hand is 
to be found in Croatia-S ] avonia, a region dependent 
on Hungary, but enjoying local autonomy ; of a total 
population of 2,621,954 they represent about seventy 
per cent., the remaining thirty per cent, being composed 
almost entirely of Serbs. In Dalmatia there is a 
population of about 660,356, of whom half a million 
are Croats. The Serbs, outside Croatia-Slavonia 
(700,000), are to be found in Dalmatia, especially in 
the south, where they number about 100,000, and in 
southern Hungary, where they are reckoned at a little 
under half a million. Another 200,000 Serbs are 
scattered through the rest of Hungary. 

The mass of the Serb population are no longer to 
be found within the frontiers of the Austro-Hungarian 
Monarchy, but in the Kingdom of Serbia. This 
Kingdom, as a consequence of the last Balkan wars, 
has a population of about 4,500,000, of whom, however, 
only 3,000,000 or 3,500,000 are Serbs, the others being 
Macedonian Bulgars, Albanians, etc. Then in Monte- 
negro, the other free Serb state, there is a population 
(with new territories) of about 435,000, almost all of 
Serb race. Finally there is Bosnia-Herzegovina, a 
country under the Austro-Hungarian government, 
Serbian by race, but with a population divided by 

* The Croatian language, but for a few dialectal differences, is 
identical with Serbian, but uses the Latin characters, whereas 
Serbian uses the Cyrillian. 



ITALY AND THE JUGOSLAV PEOPLES. 9 

religion into Orthodox (825,418), entirely devoted to 
the Serbian cause, Mussulmans (612,137), and Catholics 
who call themselves Croats (434,061). The ten million 
of Jugoslavs are accordingly distributed roughly as 
follows : — 

(a) In Austria-Hungary. 



I. 


Istria 


Croats 


200,000 


2. 


Dalmatia 


Croats 


500,000 






Serbs 


100,000 


3- 


Croatia-Slavonia 


Croats 


1,900,000 






Serbs 


700,000 


4- 


Hungary 


Croats 


300,000 






Serbs 


600,000 


5- 


Bosnia-Herzegovina. . 


Croats 


435,000 






Serbs 


625,000 






Mussulmans 


600,000 


6. 


Carniola, Carinthia, 








Styria and the Lit- 








toral 


Slovenes 


1,400,000 




(b) In the free Serbian Kingdoms. 




I. 


Serbia 


Serbs 


3,500,000 


2. 


Montenegro 


Serbs 


435>ooo 



As Virginio Gayda writes (L' Italia d'oltre Confine, 
p. 311), we cannot speak of the Adriatic problem 
without reference to the Jugoslav movement. " Its 
importance arises from these fundamental facts : it 
embodies an historical tendency of a people, precipitated 
by an inevitable fate towards a solution ; no force can 
arrest it or definitively divert it : whatever may be the 
solution, it will work a change in the internal aspect 
of Austria, and will profoundly affect the political 



f*\l 



io ITALY AND THE JUGOSLAV PEOPLES. 

national system of the Eastern coast of the Adriatic, 
with an immediate recoil on the Italians of Austria 
and on all the Italian element in the Adriatic region."* 

In the days of the Venetian Republic, that power 
dominated all the Eastern coast of the Adriatic, from 
below Trieste to the Ionian Sea, except for some points 
on the Croatian coast and the territory of the Republic 
of Ragusa ; but her possessions did not extend far 
inland, and where she had so penetrated for a certain 
distance she had not established her culture there as 
she had done along the coast. The city of Trieste had 
also been for some time under the Venetian hegemony, 
but in 1382 placed itself voluntarily under the protec- 
tion of the Archdukes of Austria, who finally by an 
abuse of their power converted this protectorate into 
possession. The territory of Gorizia-Gradisca was 
divided between Venice and the Austrian Counts of 
Gorizia ; so also a part of the interior of Istria was a 
fief of Imperial Counts, and in the part which was 
governed by Venice there were numerous Croat 
peasants transported by the Republic to colonize the 
region. 

The interior of Dalmatia was populated by Slavs 
from the fall of the Byzantine Empire, and the part 
of the coast which constituted the tiny Republic of 
Ragusa (from the mouth of the Narente to the Bocche 
di Cattaro) was also in the main Slav. But the other 
coast cities, Greek foundations, colonised by Latins 
and then ruled by Venice, were absolutely Italian ; 
Italian also was all the civilization of the region. 

* This book was written, it must be remembered, before Italy went 
to war. 



ITALY AND THE JUGOSLAV PEOPLES. n 

The Italian language had to be used by the Slavs 
themselves in all their relations with the Western 
world, and down to a few years ago every person of 
the slightest education spoke Italian habitually. 
Even to-day many of the most fanatical Croats speak 
it at home, and often their women know no other 
language. 

Croatia-Slavonia, on the other hand, has always 
been a purely Slav country, if we except the city of 
Fiume, in which the majority of the population are 
Italian. It enjoyed a period of independence under a 
native dynasty, after the extinction of which it came 
under Hungarian dominion. After the fall of the 
Kingdom of Hungary in consequence of the Turkish 
victory at Mohacs in 1526, the Croatian Diet elected 
Ferdinand of Austria king of Croatia ; when the 
Kingdom of Hungary was reconstituted in the seven- 
teenth century under the House of Hapsburg, Croatia 
was again placed under Hungary, but with a large 
measure of autonomy. 

The other regions occupied by Jugoslavs had in the 
middle ages constituted the Serbian Empire, which 
under King Stephen Dushan (1336-56) included not 
only the present kingdom of Serbia, but also all 
Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania, and parts of 
Greece and Bulgaria. Stephen died as he was on the 
point of occupying Constantinople, and subsequently 
many territories fell away from his kingdom ; among 
these were Bosnia and Herzegovina, which formed 
independent states. In 1389 the Serbian army was 
utterly defeated by the Turks at the battle of Kossovo, 
and in the course of the fifteenth century the Ottomans 



i\y 



12 ITALY AND THE JUGOSLAV PEOPLES. 

conquered nearly all the Serbian country. In 
Macedonia and in Albania the Serb element, mingling 
with other races, was greatly reduced and almost 
disappeared, while in the valleys of the Morava and 
Drina and in Bosnia-Herzegovina it maintained its 
racial unity, although in these last provinces there were 
numerous conversions to Islam, above all among the 
adherents of the sect of the Bogomils, to which the 
majority of the aristocracy belonged. These Mussul- 
man Serbs then became the fiercest persecutors of 
those who had remained true to their old faith. In the 
so-called Old Serbia, a region to the South-East of 
Montenegro, the Albanians who had also been con- 
verted to Islam, encouraged and egged on by the 
Turkish authorities, massacred and plundered the 
Orthodox Serbs. A certain number of Serbs, to escape 
persecution, had emigrated to Southern Hungary, 
where they received lands and were granted a certain 
local autonomy under their own " despots." In 1690, 
at the invitation of the Emperor Leopold I., Arsen 
Tzernojevich, the Serbian Patriarch of Ipek, emigrated 
from that district with 37,000 Christian families to 
settle in Hungary, and then was established the Serbian 
Voivody, from which the King-Emperor takes one of 
his titles, Grand Voivode of the Serbian Voivody. 
The only scraps of Serbian territory that remained 
independent were the tiny principality of Montenegro 
and the Republic of Ragusa. Montenegro, formerly 
part of the Serbian Empire, became independent after 
Kossovo, and was subsequently the asylum of those 
Serbs who were able to escape from the Turkish 
persecutions. It resisted with magnificent courage 



ITALY AND THE JUGOSLAV PEOPLES. 13 

the repeated attacks of the Ottomans, and, although 
several times invaded, always succeeded in expelling 
the enemy. The story of Ragusa is less heroic, and 
the little Republic succeeded in saving herself from 
the insidious designs of her Mussulman and Christian 
neighbours more by diplomacy than by force of arms. 
Although inhabited by a population mainly Serbian, 
its culture was in great part Latin, as is proved by the 
Venetian style of its monumental remains, and by the 
documents of its archives, which are drawn up in 
Latin and Italian as well as Serbian. 

By the Peace of Campoformio in 1797, Napoleon 
ceded all the dominions of the Venetian Republic to 
the Hapsburg Monarchy ; but he took them back 
after Austerlitz, in 1805, and constituted, out of the 
Croatian coast, Carniola, Carinthia and the district 
of Gorizia, the Kingdom of Illyria, to which in 1808 
was added the territory of Ragusa. Then followed 
the invasion of Dalmatia by the Austrians and English, 
and by the Treaty of Vienna all the Adriatic littoral 
was assigned to Austria-Hungary. 

Croatia and Slavonia w T ere declared partes adnexae 
of Hungary, retaining their elective Diet, local 
autonomy and the use of the Croatian language ; but 
the city of Fiume remained a corpus separatum with 
an autonomous municipality dependent on the 
Hungarian Government. All the rest of the region 
became part of Austria. 

In the period 1815-1848 the Jugoslav provinces 
of Austria-Hungary were governed despotically ; this 
was true even of Croatia-Slavonia, in spite of its 
constitution. These peoples lacked a true national 



J.IIIARY. 



i 4 ITALY AND THE JUGOSLAV PEOPLES. 

sentiment to unite them, and while on the coast 
Italian continued to be the language of officials and 
of the cultured classes, in the interior, although 
Croatian was mostly spoken, German gained ground. 
However, in this period were seen the first beginnings 
of a Slav renascence, in the Monarchy as well as in 
the lands which were under the Ottoman yoke. 
Thenceforward the movement assumed a double 
aspect, Croatian-Catholic in Austria-Hungary, Serbian- 
Orthodox in Turkey. The Serbian movement natur- 
ally had for its chief aim the liberation of the country 
from Ottoman oppression, but the first insurrectionary 
movements in 1804 were directed against the persecu- 
tions of the Janissaries ; indeed, from the beginning 
the Serbian patriots acted in the name of the Sultan 
against his too turbulent soldiery. But very soon the 
Constantinople Government became aware of the 
object of the Serbian Christians and opposed their 
claims by force of arms. After a series of bloody 
insurrections, with the intervention now of Russia, 
now of Austria, sometimes to aid the Christians 
against the dominion of Islam, but more often inspired 
by the mutual jealousies and ambitions of these powers, 
Serbia obtained in 1820 a partial autonomy ; and in 
1867, after other revolts from within and interventions 
from outside, the last Turkish garrison was withdrawn 
from the country, which was now governed by native 
princes of the two dynasties of Karageorgevich and 
Obrenovich in alternation. Serbia had then an area 
of only 39,000 square kilometres, but was able to make 
a certain progress ; there was a renascence of national 
culture, and a revival of literary traditions and of the 



ITALY AND THE JUGOSLAV PEOPLES. 15 

memories of the great Serbian Empire of the Middle 
Ages. Then were born the first dreams of the reunion 
of the scattered members of the Serbian nation in a 
single State, and Belgrade became not merely the 
capital of the Serbian principality, but the centre of 
attraction for the Serbs of Turkey and Austria- 
Hungary. In that Monarchy, however, the Pan-Serbian 
idea found itself opposed by the Croatian idea, and 
relations between Serbs and Croats in Croatia- 
Slavonia and in Dalmatia were anything but cordial. 

In Austria-Hungary the Jugoslav revival assumed 
a character different from that of the movement in 
Serbia and in Turkey. The memory was still vivid 
of the Napoleonic kingdom of Illyria, which had united 
almost all the Jugoslavs to the Monarchy, and on 
the attempt of the Hungarians to Magyarize Croatia- 
Slavonia, there arose at Agram a Croatian Nationalist 
movement, at first literary and intellectual, but 
subsequently also political. It was inspired by 
Liudevit Gaj, whose works enjoyed a wide c ; rculation 
and popularity. This " Illyrian " movement marked 
the beginning of " Trialism," or the aspiration towards 
a single Croatian state which should comprehend all 
the Jugoslav provinces of Austria and of Hungary 
under the aegis of the Hapsburgs. The Hungarian 
Government sternly opposed this tendency, and was 
always successful in hindering the election of the 
" Illyrists " to the Diet of Agram. From 1840 
onwards it attempted to introduce Magyar as the 
official language in the place of Croatian and Latin, and 
in 1842 there were sanguinary riots between Croatians 
and Hungarians. In 1848, after a brief idyll of demo- 




16 ITALY AND THE JUGOSLAV PEOPLES. 

cratic fraternity between the two peoples, the Croatians 
elected, as their Ban or Governor, General Joseph 
Jellachich, and demanded complete independence from 
Hungary. The Magyars, however, while struggling 
for their own independence from Austria, fiercely 
oppressed the non-Magyar populations of the kingdom 
— Croats, Serbs, Roumanians — and this threw them 
into the arms of Austria and reaction. In 1849, in 
fact, the Croats under Jellachich attacked Hungary 
from the south and then fought beside the troops of 
Prince Windisch-Gratz to crush the Liberals of 
Vienna. After the triumph of Austria, Croatia- 
Slavonia was separated from Hungary and received 
the addition of Fiume, though not, as it had hoped, 
of Dalmatia. From 1850 to i860, however, local 
autonomies remained in suspense, and Hungary and 
Croatia alike were ruled from Vienna by the reactionary 
methods of the Minister Bach, to such a degree that 
it was said that Croatia received as a concession that 
which had been imposed on Hungary as a punishment. 
In 1861 a sort of constitution was granted, but the 
constitutional regime was not seriously re-established 
in all parts of the monarchy until 1867. However, 
Croatia-Slavonia was again placed under Hungary, 
though with considerable autonomy, and it lost Fiume, 
which once more became a corpus separatum. The 
country was represented at the Parliament of Budapest 
for common affairs by thirty-six (afterwards forty- 
three) deputies elected by the Diet of Agram from 
among its members, and Hungary continued to be 
represented in Croatia by the Ban, who was nominated 
by the King. 



» 



ITALY AND THE JUGOSLAV PEOPLES. r~ 

Meanwhile Austria had lost a great part of her 
Italian dominions — Lombardy in 1859, tne Veneto in 
1866 — and, what is more, her influence over the minor 
states of Italy ; there remained to her only Trent, 
Gorizia-Gradisca, Trieste, Istria and Dalmatia, lands 
wholly or in part Italian. Before 1859 an d 1866 
Italian had been the official language of a great part 
of the Monarchy ; indeed, there is a record of an ordin- 
ance of 1854 concerning the mercantile marine which 
was published in Italian only. Now, on the other 
hand, Austria ceased to be an Italian power, save for 
a small strip of her territory ; at the same time she 
had lost in a great degree her German character, and 
the Slav element had succeeded to the most influential 
place in the Monarchy. The Italians who remained 
within her borders came to be considered as a 
dangerous element, in as much as they could not but 
feel attracted towards their brothers in the kingdom 
of Italy. Nor need we forget that, repelled by Italy 
and Germany, the ambitions of the Monarchy were 
thenceforward ever more and more directed towards 
the Balkan countries ; and for such aims the Jugo- 
slavs represented a valuable element. It was necessary, 
therefore, on the one hand to give them some reasons 
for satisfaction and, on the other, to secure a strong 
base on the Adriatic littoral. To this end Austria 
initiated a policy of denationalisation of the Italian 
element in the whole region, according every kind of 
favour to the Jugoslavs, and seeking to erase the 
character which two thousand years of Latin civilization 
had impressed upon it. The constitution of 1867, by 
giving greater importance to numbers, placed the 



R BO0I to 



18 ITALY AND THE JUGOSLAV PEOPLES. 

Italians in a situation of inferiority in Dalmatia, where, 
if they formed the cultured and well-to-do section of 
the population, they were nevertheless numerically 
in a minority. Thus it was that the local administra- 
tions were by slow degrees all transformed from 
Italian to Slav, except the commune of Zara, where 
the Italian character still maintains itself intact, 
although assailed by snares and oppression in a 
thousand forms. In the other provinces where the 
Italians are in a majority, or at least in a strong 
minority, they are successful in maintaining their 
racial character, but unfortunately the insidious 
methods of the Austrian Government have succeeded 
in arousing between Italians and Slavs a deep hatred 
which did not exist before, and which should never 
have arisen ; and it is this hatred which has often 
made both of them forget who is their real enemy. 

It is, however, in this period that the Jugoslav 
peoples subject to Austria-Hungary begin to make 
real progress. The Jugoslav Academy of Agram 
founded in 1867 very quickly became an important 
centre of culture, and in 1874 the Croatian University 
was founded in the same city. The work of the moral 
and intellectual elevation of the people initiated by 
Gaj was continued by Joseph Strossmayer, bishop of 
Diakovo, the eminent theologian, archaeologist and 
writer of Latin verse, famous in the Western world 
for his fierce opposition at the Vatican Council of 
1869-70 to the doctrine of Papal infallibility. He 
devoted all his activity, all his ability and the large 
revenues of his diocese to the Croatian idea. Through- 
out Croatia, as also in the Jugoslav provinces of 



ITALY AND THE JUGOSLAV PEOPLES. 19 

Austria, there arose schools of all grades ; and if we 
must deplore the Slavizing of certain formerly Italian 
institutions, we cannot but admire the efforts of a rude 
and primitive people to improve its own culture. The 
Slovenes lingered far behind the Croats and the Serbs 
in this movement, being ever the most ignorant 
section of the Jugoslavs in Austria. If the Viennese 
Government stirred up the Slavs as a whole against 
the Italians, it did not neglect to apply its customary 
principle of divide et impera to the Slavs themselves, 
and spared no effort to intensify the dissension between 
Croats and Serbs. The former, being Catholics, and 
indeed Clericals, enjoyed the favour of the authorities 
and of the reactionary Court camarilla ; while the 
Serbs, who, besides being Orthodox, were in close 
relation with their co-nationals beyond the borders, 
were suspect and persecuted. The Government of 
Budapest, on the other hand, suspected both parties 
equally, and tyrannized over both, while careful to 
hinder all agreement between them. 

The year 1876 is a fateful date in the history of the 
Jugoslavs. The persecutions of which the Christian 
populations of Turkey were the victims provoked in 
1875-76 a series of revolts which were bloodily repressed. 
The first movement broke out in the Herzegovina, 
extending thence to Bosnia, and was caused by the 
cruelty and extortions of the Mussulman Serbs them- 
selves, supported by the Ottoman authorities. The 
revolutionaries received help from Serbia, from Monte- 
negro and from the Krivoshie mountaineers above the 
Bocche di Cattaro. In 1876 Serbia and Montenegro 
declared war against Turkey, and while the latter was 



K CLUf 



'"**> 



20 ITALY AND THE JUGOSLAV PEOPLES. 

almost uniformly successful, Serbia was defeated and 
forced to beg for an armistice. At the same time an 
insurrectionary movement in Bulgaria was crushed 
with horrible massacres by the Turks and the Pomaks 
(Mussulman Bulgars) . These occurrences provoked the 
intervention of Russia, and after a long and arduous 
campaign Turkey was defeated and forced to sign the 
Treaty of S. Stefano. On this foundation was con- 
stituted a great Bulgarian State, and small additions 
were made to the territory of Serbia and Montenegro. 
At Berlin this treaty was revised and corrected in 
accordance with the wishes of England ; Serbia 
received the districts of Nish, Vrania and the partly 
Bulgarian district of Pirot, while to Montenegro were 
assigned Podgoritza and a strip of sea-coast with the 
ports of Antivari and Dulcigno. "But Austria was 
more fortunate, since without having had to fight she 
received at the hands of the signatories to the Treaty 
of Berlin the mandate to " occupy " and administer 
Bosnia and Herzegovina, two fair and rich provinces, 
inhabited, as we have seen, by a population entirely 
Serbo-Croatian, though divided by religion into three 
different and hostile communities. Although they 
were not then formally annexed, they fell completely 
under the dominion of Austria-Hungary, and were 
thus shut out of the sphere of Serbian aspirations. 
Further, the Monarchy obtained the right to establish 
garrisons and make roads in the Sanjak of Novibazar, 
which thus created a barrier between Serbia and 
Montenegro and a convenient means of access for 
Austria to Macedonia, Albania and eventually the 
^Egean. 



ITALY AND THE JUGOSLAV PEOPLES. 21 

The Treaty of Berlin was consequently a heavy blow 
to the Serbian States ; for if it granted them some 
additions of territory, it left numerous Serbian popula- 
tions in Old Serbia and Macedonia under the Ottoman 
yoke, and substituted in Bosnia-Herzegovina for the 
Turkish dominion — cruel and oppressive, it is true, but 
feeble and destined to disappear — that of Austria- 
Hungary, organized and regular, but odious to the 
people and above all strong and stable. The occupa- 
tion strengthened in Austria the tendency to 
" Trialism," which, if it had been translated into action, 
would have marked the decline of Serbian aspirations. 
Trialism had subsequently a powerful protector in the 
Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who saw in it a weapon 
against the overbearing attitude of the Hungarians, 
an instrument for strengthening Clerical influences, 
and a bulwark against Italian Liberalism on the one 
side and Serbian Orthodoxy on the other. Hungarians, 
Serbs and Italians, therefore, stood in opposition to it, 
but each on their own account, without any attempt 
at real understanding. Meanwhile there was a con- 
tinuous development in the Monarchy of the double 
policy in regard to the Jugoslavs — support and encour- 
agement in the struggle against the Italians in the 
Austrian provinces, oppression and persecution of the 
Jugoslavs themselves on the part of the Hungarian 
Government in Croatia-Slavonia and of the Austro- 
Hungarian administration in Bosnia-Herzegovina. By 
means of a series of illegal provisions, acts of violence 
and abuse of authority, Hungary attempted to 
Magyarize Croatia-Slavonia ; and although the 
country was almost entirely Slav, the elections were 



22 ITALY AND THE JUGOSLAV PEOPLES. 

conducted in such a way that in the Diet of Agram 
there was for a long time a Magyarophil or " Magyar- 
one " majority. This provoked in the population a 
violent discontent, which showed itself in 1903 in 
serious tumults directed against Hungary and its 
local representative, the Ban Count Khuen-Hedervary, 
whose method of government was to excite races and 
parties against each other. Meanwhile, however, the 
tendency to an understanding between Croats and 
Serbs had been gathering force, thanks especially to 
the labours of the Dalmatian publicist Franz Supilo ; 
and since it had not been possible to gain the support 
of Austria against the over-bearing behaviour of the 
Hungarian Government, it was decided, at the gather- 
ing of Croatian deputies at Fiume in 1905, to work for 
an understanding with the party of Independence in 
the Parliament of Budapest, provided that a guarantee 
could be obtained for the union of Croatia-Slavonia 
with Dalmatia and for the complete autonomy of 
these provinces. Soon afterwards twenty-six Serbian 
deputies, meeting at Zara, expressed their adhesion 
to the Fiume resolution. The agreement with the 
Hungarian Independence party led to nothing, but, 
on the other hand, the Serbo-Croatian coalition was 
established in Croatia-Slavonia. Now that it no longer 
commanded a majority in the Croatian Diet, the 
Hungarian Government inaugurated under the new 
Ban, Baron Paul Rauch, a regime of sheer absolutism, 
without the slightest regard for legality. In this 
business the Governments of Vienna and Pest were in 
agreement, since both were aware of the grave common 
danger threatened by the Serbo-Croatian understand- 



ITALY AND THE JUGOSLAV PEOPLES. 23 

ing. Then was let loose a veritable storm of 
accusations against the leaders of the coalition, with 
the object of discrediting them and proving that they 
were acting in collusion with individuals and societies 
which aimed at detaching the Jugoslav provinces 
from the Monarchy and uniting them to the Kingdom 
of Serbia. In the summer of 1908, in consequence of 
the publication of the pamphlet Finale by the police- 
agent Nastich, many Serbs were arrested on the charge 
of high treason against the State. 

Meanwhile Austria considered that the moment had 
come to regularize her position in Bosnia-Herzegovina, 
perhaps because the constitution proclaimed in Turkey 
raised the question of the parliamentary representation 
(at Constantinople) of the "occupied" provinces; 
and on 7th October, 1908, their annexation was pro- 
claimed. The series of arrests in Serbia is in a way 
connected with this act ; because Austria, unable to 
disregard the decisions of the Treaty of Berlin without 
an excuse provided by the other side, was obliged to 
justify her violation of international law by proving 
that the Serbs were plotting against her own integrity. 
The annexation caused an enormous scandal through 
all Europe (except in Germany), and all but provoked 
a war between Austria and Serbia. If Serbia finally 
accepted the fait accompli, it was because Russia, 
feeling herself insufficiently supported by France and 
Great Britain, while Germany had promised all her 
aid to Austria, counselled submission for the moment. 
The result seemed a triumph for the Austro-Hungarian 
Imperialist policy, but in reality it had been achieved 
at the cost of a grave sacrifice, namely, of the right to 



CU» 



24 ITALY AND THE JUGOSLAV PEOPLES. 

maintain garrisons in the Sanjak of Novibazar. This 
is not the place to examine the motives of that sacrifice ; 
it is enough to lay stress on the fact that thereby 
Austria closed to herself the most convenient road to 
the heart of the Balkans, and rendered possible in the 
future the collaboration for warlike purposes of Serbia 
and Montenegro. The annexation had not put a stop 
to the persecution of the Serbs ; indeed, the arrests 
increased in numbers, and the monstrous trial of 
Agram was set on foot, fifty-three Serbs being charged 
with Pan-Serbian conspiracy. The case, based on 
forgery, illegality and abuses of every kind, ended 
with the sentencing of thirty-one of the accused to 
penalties ranging from five to twelve years' imprison- 
ment each. But in the libel action which followed at 
Vienna against Prof. Friedjung on behalf of some of 
the condemned persons and of other Serbs, the iniquity 
of the Agram sentences, and the nefarious workings 
of the Hungarian Government in Croatia and of the 
Austro-Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs, were 
made as clear as day, and while Friedjung came to terms 
with his accusers all the persons condemned at Agram 
were pardoned. 

These events only made the understanding between 
Serbs and Croats the more cordial, and intensified 
the hatred of both against Austria-Hungary. But 
the kingdom of Serbia was still too feeble, disorganized 
and torn by internal struggles to exercise a strong 
attraction for all the Jugoslavs of the Monarchy and 
excite a dangerous irredentist movement ; and in 
men's ears still lingered the echo of the horrible 
assassination of Belgrade, which had thrown so lurid 



ITALY AND THE JUGOSLAV PEOPLES. 25 

a light on Balkan political customs. The Pan-Serbian 
idea was still a vague aspiration and nothing more, 
as was proved at the trials of Agram and Vienna. 
But the Balkan war of 1912 introduced a radical 
modification of the position, by raising enormously 
the prestige of Serbia. Thousands of Serbian and 
Croatian subjects of Austria hastened to enrol them- 
selves in the ranks of the Serbian and Montenegrin 
armies, and at the time of the next mobilization in 
Austria-Hungary the resistance to the recall of the 
reservists assumed vast proportions, amounting to 
as many as eighty per cent, of those called up in some 
parts of Dalmatia. If the second Balkan war marked 
the end of the League, it did not, in the eyes of the 
Austro-Hungarian Jugoslavs, diminish the prestige 
of Serbia ; and the kingdom began to represent in 
reality a possible peril to the Dual Monarchy, since 
henceforward the union of all the Serbo-Croatian 
peoples became visible on the horizon as an ideal 
capable of practical realization. Austria understood 
the bearing of these events, and devoted all her energy 
to check the expansion of Serbia and Montenegro 
even on the Balkan side. The other great Powers, 
for fear of more serious complications, gave their 
assent to her policy. Serbia, though her territory was 
doubled, was still impelled by one aspiration which 
had remained unsatisfied — an outlet to the sea — and 
hoped as a consequence of her successes to attain the 
optatus alveus. In the first war a Serbian army, after 
a march which will remain memorable in military 
annals, reached the coast near Durazzo ; and this 
might have been her port. But Austria opposed it 



26 ITALY AND THE JUGOSLAV PEOPLES. 

strenuously, adducing as pretext the violation of the 
principle of nationality, in so far as some of the 
territories occupied by the Serbs were inhabited by 
Albanians. This unwonted tenderness on the part of 
Austria for oppressed nationalities might excite wonder; 
but her true motive was very different. As a general 
principle she wished to avoid an excessive aggrandize- 
ment of Serbia, but above all she saw in an independent 
Albania an excellent theatre — the last remaining to 
her in the Balkans — for the development of her 
activity and her intrigues, with the hope of reacquiring 
part of her shaken prestige. The idea, from the Austro- 
Hungarian point of view, is perfectly intelligible. 
Less so the attitude of Italy in giving Austria her 
unconditional support. Italy, it is true, had no 
territorial aims in the Balkans, and no intention of 
carrying on there the sort of intrigues so dear to the 
Viennese Government. But apart from the sympathy 
which bound us to the Albanians by ancient tradition, 
and by the fact that numerous people of that race live 
in our country, there was a fear, I may say almost a 
panic fear, lest the extension of Serbia to the Adriatic 
would be equivalent to the appearance of Russia in 
that sea. Serbia, it was said, being a Slav Orthodox 
State, would only be the vanguard of Russia. This 
conviction was and is widely diffused in public opinion, 
and has inspired the policy of several of our statesmen. 
To this must be added the antipathy which the Italians 
of the Austrian littoral cherish for their Slav neigh- 
bours, and which they had instilled into those Italians 
of Italy who had occupied themselves with the Adriatic 
question. Finally, we must take into account our 



ITALY AND THE JUGOSLAV PEOPLES. 27 

general foreign policy, which, thanks to the Triple 
Alliance, has been tied to that of Austria. In this 
way tendencies so diverse, nay so opposed, as 
Irredentism, sympathy for the Triple Alliance, pity 
for oppressed nationalities, fear of Russia, and, further, 
on the part of the Clericals hatred of Orthodoxy, 
and, on that of the snobs, inclination towards an aristo- 
cratic state like Austria — all contributed to mould 
our policy in opposition to Serbian aspirations. 
Thence sprang that abortion, the State of Albania. 
It should be understood that our inadequate knowledge 
of Balkan history is responsible for the most important 
of these tendencies : the fear that Serbia would become 
a fief of Russia. History proves, on the contrary, 
that if the development of the Balkan States began 
with the struggle against the Turks and with the 
support of some great Powers, especially of Russia, it 
took form, in the second stage, as a struggle to liberate 
itself from the hobbles imposed by the liberator 
State. The history of Bulgaria offers us a luminous 
example of this principle. After the war of 1877, when 
it was a question of creating the state of Bulgaria, 
Russia and England were equally convinced that it 
would be a slave to the former ; for that reason 
Russia wished it to be a large state, while England did 
her best to reduce it to the smallest terms. In the 
end there was created a Bulgaria smaller than Russia 
desired ; but to the great surprise of all, the Bulgars 
were no sooner freed from the Turkish yoke than they 
devoted all their strength to shaking off Russian 
influence. Weak and few in numbers though they 
were, they succeeded, and in the crisis of 1885 for the 



28 ITALY AND THE JUGOSLAV PEOPLES. 

union of Bulgaria with Eastern Roumelia, it was 
England that supported them and Russia that hindered 
their aspirations. These facts had been forgotten by 
those in Italy who were inimical to the Serbian ideal ; 
nor was any account taken of the fact that, the stronger 
the Balkan States become, the more independent 
will they be of foreign influences. We forget also the 
profound differences that exist between Russia and the 
Balkan countries in government, political traditions, 
habits and social customs. 

The consequences of the exclusion of Serbia from 
the Adriatic were serious, since it rendered the Serbians 
hostile to any concession whatever in favour of 
Bulgaria in Macedonia, and thus led the way to the 
second Balkan war, shattering the alliance and leaving 
a residuum of jealousy and rancour between Serbs and 
Bulgars, and between Bulgars and Greeks, which has 
ever since prevented its reconstitution. It is question- 
able whether Austria would have presented her brutal 
ultimatum to Serbia in July, 19 14, had the League 
still been in existence. 

Henceforward all the Serbs of Austria-Hungary, 
and also a great number of the Croats, turned their 
eyes to Serbia and Montenegro, as in the struggle 
for our own Risorgimento the eyes of all the rest of 
Italy were fixed on Piedmont. When on 28th July, 
1914, the Austro-Serbian war broke out, involving 
afterwards seven other powers, Austria, who had always 
favoured the Jugoslavs when it was a question of 
inciting them against Italy, now regarded them as 
rebels, and adopted towards them a policy of cruel 
repression. Almost all the most eminent persons, 



ITALY AND THE JUGOSLAV PEOPLES. 29 

whether Serb or Croat, including many Deputies to 
the Reichsrath and the provincial Diets, were arrested 
or interned, except those who were fortunate enough 
to escape in time ; not a few, it is said, were executed. 
In Bosnia-Herzegovina above all the repression was 
savage, as also were the measures against the Serbian 
population during the two Austrian invasions of the 
territory of the kingdom. The precise details of these 
events are not yet known, but it is certain that Austria 
declared war not only on Serbia and Montenegro, but 
on all the Jugoslav element even within her own 
frontiers, so much so that many regiments of that race 
mutinied rather than fight against their own brethren, 
or surrendered voluntarily to the Serbian troops after 
the disastrous days of Tzer and Valievo. 

It remains now to examine the question of our 
future relations with Serbia, or rather with the great 
Jugoslav State which will probably issue from this 
war. Many in Italy believe that the question of the 
littoral constitutes an irremediable cause of strife 
between us and the Slavs, since they would claim the 
whole of the Eastern coast as their inheritance. There 
are certainly some Chauvinists who demand as much, 
but they form a small minority, and it should not be 
difficult to come to an agreement with the others. 
Although it may be impossible to divide the territory 
in dispute between Italy and Jugoslavia in such a 
way that all the Italians may be assigned to the one 
and all the Slavs to the other part, it will be possible 
to arrive at a partition which will be approximately 
rational and equitable. To Italy appertain by right 
those territories which by tradition and culture are 



30 ITALY AND THE JUGOSLAV PEOPLES. 

conspicuously Italian, even if they contain a slight 
Slav majority, since mere numbers ought not to form 
the only criterion. So also we ought to have those 
tracts of coast and those islands which are indispensable 
for our security. The rest will belong to the Slavs, 
and on this foundation it will be possible to come to 
an amicable agreement, so that our future relations 
with the Serbo-Croatians may be intimate and cordial. 
As the hatred of Austria has already united the two 
branches, formerly hostile, of the Jugoslav people, 
so it seems that from the outbreak of the war has been 
born an accord between the Italians of Dalmatia and 
the Croatian Liberals, and even between Italians and 
Slovenes in the Gorizia district and at Trieste, where 
both have been victims of the same persecution. It 
is to be hoped accordingly that the old rancour will 
soon be forgotten and that the two peoples will work 
together, in war and then in peace, for a better future. 
Italy indeed is destined to exercise a widespread 
beneficent influence in the development of Jugoslavia 
and of the Balkans in general. These countries are 
of a considerable potential wealth, but little exploited ; 
they lack railways, roads, great public works, and, 
above all, industries, except to a small extent in 
Roumania and Greece ; nor will they for many years 
to come be in a position to provide for their own needs. 
Up till now they have imported the greater part of 
their industrial products from Austria-Hungary, from 
Germany and from Great Britain, while Italy has 
occupied a relatively modest position in this field. 
In the future, however, thanks to the hatred excited 
by this war against Germany and Austria, the Balkan 



ITALY AND THE JUGOSLAV PEOPLES. 31 

States will certainly do their best to find elsewhere 
the products of which they have need. Russia for 
many years to come will not be in a position to export 
manufactures in large quantities, so that the field will 
remain cpen above all to Great Britain, France and 
Italy. The latter, in view of her excellent geographical 
position with the ports of Brindisi, Bari, Ancona, 
Venice, and, let us hope, also some of those on the 
other shore, ought to be in a position to enjoy a large 
share of these advantages. On the other hand we 
shall be able to derive from Jugoslavia many raw 
materials of which we have need, and contribute to 
the construction of public works in that region through 
our engineers and skilled workmen and in part through 
our capital. But our collaboration will not be limited 
to merchandise, capital and labour ; our culture also 
and our teaching institutions will contribute to the 
Balkan revival, just as in the middle ages, when 
together with cargoes of manufactured goods Italian 
ideas penetrated into Serbia, and Italy served as a 
channel of spiritual communication between the 
Balkans and the rest of Western Europe. 

But to attain this end it will be necessary for the 
Italian people to be bold in commerce as in arms and 
in politics, to shake off many prejudices, and to acquire 
much knowledge. 



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